Electro-Harmonix Signal Pad: Now this looks like a cool little device

[MCChris]

http://www.makenmusic.com/product.cfm?prodID=2400

Ever wanted a second channel on your one channel amp? Your volume knob works to clean up your tone, but it's not always the same. Same with your volume pedal. It gets close, but it's not always the clean tone you had on that last verse.

The Signal Pad is as simple as it gets. You can set your amp hot, with a good amount of overdrive, set the volume cut you want and as soon as you engage it, you get the exact pulled back and cleaner tone you want, everytime you turn it on. Turn the pedal off and you get your full amp's tone again.

This pedal also works really well with dynamic effects too. With an effect like an autowah, the harder you strum, the more it opens up. You get totally different tones with this pedal engaged before that. There's a ton of options. It's just kind of one of those no-brainer pedals that makes you go "wait... why didn't this get thought of sooner?"

[atquinn]

Concept makes complete sense. Seems like it would be fairly easy to make one of those yourself though? (says the guy who know nothing about this sort of thing )

-

Austin

[rj2858]

Or...audition a bunch of overdrive/distortion pedals, set your amp to the clean sound you want, and kick in the gritty sound you want with the pedal, like we've all been doing since the late 60's.

Seems like all this does is let you get the 'overdriven' sound you want, and perhaps have to settle for 'about' the clean sound you'd like, as opposed to getting the clean sound you want, and perhaps getting close to the distorted sound you want with an overdrive/distortion pedal. It comes down to which 'exact' tone is more important, or how much do you like the 'fuzz' pedal you're using.

[MCChris]

I'm pretty happy with the clean tone I get from rolling back my guitar's volume into a half or 3/4 overdriven amp (dirt pedals I use for solo saturation). The challenge is zeroing in on it on the fly without wondering if I rolled the volume back too much or not enough. Tried it with a volume pedal that had a minimum volume setting but that was a bit of a pain, especially when the pedal mechanism wore out and I had to keep my foot on it to keep it from falling forward.

[rj2858]

I'm pretty happy with the clean tone I get from rolling back my guitar's volume into a half or 3/4 overdriven amp (dirt pedals I use for solo saturation). The challenge is zeroing in on it on the fly without wondering if I rolled the volume back too much or not enough. Tried it with a volume pedal that had a minimum volume setting but that was a bit of a pain, especially when the pedal mechanism wore out and I had to keep my foot on it to keep it from falling forward.

So you're really using it in a situation where you're looking for 3 sounds then; clean - with your volume rolled back, overdrive - with volume full up, and then kick in your 'dirt' pedal for the 3rd sound. I can see this being handy then.

[MCChris]

So you're really using it in a situation where you're looking for 3 sounds then; clean - with your volume rolled back, overdrive - with volume full up, and then kick in your 'dirt' pedal for the 3rd sound. I can see this being handy then.

Exactly. And like Austin, I lack the knowhow to build my own for, like, $5, so I'd have to pay a premium for a pre-manufactured one lol.